Killerfind (25 page)

he
headache that began
the night before ballooned into a full-blown migraine by morning. Rhetta pulled
the covers over her head after Randolph got out of bed. When he peered in the
doorway of the bedroom a few minutes later and asked if she was going to run
with him, she groaned.

“I take that as a no.” He tiptoed to the bed and
patted her shoulder. “Can I get you anything?”

Her head hurt too badly to shake it, so she
muttered, “No,” and burrowed into the cocoon of sheets wrapped around her head.

Randolph went to the closet and rummaged through it,
returning with a heating pad. He plugged it in and laid it across her neck.
Relaxing tight neck muscles always seemed to help her whenever she came down
with a skull-crusher. She hadn’t suffered a killer headache in a long time.

“Thanks,” was all she could manage and she was sure
it wasn’t much more than a mumble. Talking hurt her head. She lay on her
stomach, heating pad across her neck and fell into a pain-induced stupor.

*
* *

It
was three hours later when Rhetta next opened her eyes. While the headache wasn’t
completely gone, she realized now that she might live. She listened to the
quiet house. Rolling over, she peered at the clock. Nearly 9:00. She rolled to
the edge of the bed and sat up. Her head didn’t spin out of control like it had
when she awoke earlier and the headache had swamped her. She slipped on her
slippers and padded to the bathroom. Propped on the sink was a note in her
husband’s looping writing:
“I called Woody and told him you weren’t well,
and that you wouldn’t be in. Go back to bed. XOXOXO”

Rhetta hugged the note to her chest, and returned to
the heating pad.

*
* *

The
next time Rhetta woke up, she did so with a start. Her head and neck were
drenched in sweat. It took her a moment to realize it was from the heating pad.
The clock read 11:30, and the house was still silent. If Randolph had gone
running without her, he must’ve showered in the guest room.

The intense throbbing pain had dimmed to where her
head felt reasonably normal, so she slid her feet into slippers again, donned a
robe and swayed her way to the kitchen. She was still dizzy and felt like she
was walking on a planet that was losing its gravitational pull.

After loading the coffee maker, she propped herself
on a stool at the counter and reached for her cell phone, still plugged into
the wall charger. Although she didn’t think she could eat anything yet, the
tantalizing coffee aroma wafting from the other end of the counter made her
stomach growl. The phone’s screen revealed a flurry of missed calls, mostly
business. Not that business calls weren’t important; right now she didn’t feel
like returning any of them. Two were from Ricky. She tapped the voice mail that
had accompanied the last one.

“Hi, Rhetta. Just wanted to let you know I’m taking
a few days off and going out camping near Billy Dan’s place. He invited me to
go fishing with him. I’ve got the dogs. See you Monday or Tuesday. I’ll have my
phone, if it’ll work out in Bollinger County.”

In spite of feeling less than human, she had to
smile. Ricky sounded like she was getting back to her old self. Rhetta was
pleased to hear her friend was going to spend some time with Billy Dan. She
believed they’d struck up a friendship last spring. Then, Jeremy entered the
picture and Ricky had stopped mentioning Billy Dan.

Never remarrying after a divorce many years earlier,
Billy Dan had retired to a secluded wooded property west of Marble Hill, about
thirty miles from Cape Girardeau. He had a large lake well stocked with fish,
and claimed his retirement was dedicated to fishing.

Rhetta carried her coffee with her to the bathroom,
turned on the shower, and breathed in the steam. The hot water sluicing over
her tired body and aching head worked wonders. She decided she felt about as
normal as she was going to, given all the excitement of the past couple of days
and the raging headache she’d just battled.

After she dressed and had worked her hair into its
spiky do, she decided to strip the bedclothes and throw them into the washer.
She had sweated profusely for a few hours, and wanted a nice fresh bed tonight.

*
* *

Woody
had just returned from lunch when she turned into the parking lot. He stepped
out of his Jeep and waited for her to catch up. “Randolph said you weren’t
feeling well. Are you better? Did you get your registered letter?”

Mental head slap. She had forgotten all about the
letter. “Oh, crap, Woody. I’ll go get it now. Be back in a few.”

“The last time you said you were going to the post
office you found a body. And look how that’s worked out for you. Don’t take any
detours this time.” He shook his head and went on in to the office.

She turned Streak around and headed downtown where
she lucked into a parking spot close to the front door of the Frederick Street
Main Post Office. She locked the car and slipped inside. The tiny lobby was
crowded to capacity and she managed to wedge herself between a man carrying a
box the size of Connecticut and a very large Southeast Missouri University
student with biceps resembling footballs. Probably a member of the football
team. When he turned around to make room for her, his T-shirt said, “Math
majors salute Einstein.” Go figure.

Fifteen minutes later, she’d finally inched her way
to the counter and requested her letter. After duly signing the required forms,
she glanced at the large manila envelope, but without her glasses, was unable
to tell who it was from. She tucked it into her purse and edged toward the
door. She hugged her purse securely to her chest, hoping she wouldn’t injure
anyone with it. Earlier, while she’d worn it slung over her shoulder, she’d
turned abruptly when she thought she spotted Adele Griffith scooting out the
front door. She had nearly wiped out an elderly man who’d been standing beside
her. Luckily, she caught him before he went down. He mumbled something under
his breath that sounded a lot like “crazy woman.”

Outside and on the sidewalk, she peered around
hoping to catch sight of the woman she thought was Adele Griffith. Unable to
locate her, she gave up and climbed into Streak, rolled down the windows to let
out the heat, and tossed her purse on the passenger seat. The envelope slid out
and landed on the floorboard. She snatched up the pair of reading glasses she
kept in the tray under the dash, then retrieved it. The return address leapt
off the page at her: The National Personnel Records Center on Page Ave, St.
Louis.

Her heart began to thump. Two months ago, she’d
filled out a standard Form 180 Request Pertaining to Military Records on her
father, Alexander Franklin Caldwell. It had taken her a while to find his
social security number, but she finally managed to locate it in some of her
mother’s things. She had nearly forgotten about the request. Until now. She’d
wait and open it at her office.

When her father had shown up last spring and handed
her a locket containing a picture of her and her mother, Rhetta had been angry
and wanted nothing to do with him. He’d walked out on her life when she was too
young to remember him. Later, she thought a lot about what he’d told her—that
he had been in the military and that her mother, Renate, had been the one to
send him away. At first, hearing him say that made her want to run over him.
Now, she just wanted to find out how much of what he’d said during that
encounter had been the truth.

She switched on her left turn signal, and sized up
her opportunities to leave the curb. As she waited, a high riding, four-wheel
drive truck pulled out from two spaces behind her and rumbled past her. There
in the driver’s seat, her head barely clearing the top of the steering wheel, sat
Adele Griffith.

urely,
this can’t be
the same frail woman that required a ride home from the sheriff’s office?
Nevertheless, here she was,
short, grey-haired woman peeping up and over the steering wheel, deftly
maneuvering an enormous Dodge four-by-four through Frederick Street traffic,
then Broadway, and then south on Kingshighway. Rhetta caught the personalized
license plate—ADELE. This must’ve been the truck Woody spotted while he was
peeling his head at the car wash.

Rhetta quickly discovered how well the older woman
could drive when she had trouble keeping up with the pickup. Rhetta tried
staying about four car-lengths behind, hoping that Adele wouldn’t recognize her
in Streak. Then she nearly lost the truck at the Independence Street stoplight.
Adele turned right while Rhetta was in the left lane. Rhetta managed to slide
over and follow, but by the time she spotted the truck again, it had topped the
hill and began dropping out of sight. Not spotting any police cars in the
vicinity, Rhetta took a chance and floored it. When she topped the hill at the
Mount Auburn Road intersection, she lost the truck, and this time for good. She
sat at the stop sign, scanning up and down Mount Auburn. The driver behind her
began honking. Rhetta turned right, drove down to Kingshighway, and back to the
office.

She wasn’t sure why she tailed the woman, except
that she was so surprised at discovering Adele behind the wheel of the pickup
that she had to positively identify the woman driving. And to figure out what
she was up to. That Adele had lied to the deputy about not driving bothered
Rhetta. Was she merely angling for sympathy? Or was there another reason?

*
* *

“Woody,
you were right about Adele Griffith driving a ginormous pickup.” Rhetta plopped
into her chair and adjusted it. She propped her purse and the registered letter
on her desk and began searching for her phone. First, she needed her glasses,
so she could identify the phone among the items in the bottom of her purse. She
was getting tired of dumping the contents out every time she needed her phone.
“Where are my glasses?” She scanned the desktop, and felt the tops of files and
papers to determine if the glasses were underneath. She grid-searched the
office, backtracking everywhere she’d been. “Have you seen my glasses?” she
called out as she returned from the kitchen.

“Are you looking for different glasses other than
the ones on your head?” Woody asked as she sailed past his desk.

She snatched them off her head.

“No. These are the only ones I was searching for.”
She glanced at Woody, who had swiveled back to his computer monitor but not
fast enough to hide the smile wrinkling the corner of his mouth. Smile? It was
more of a Woody smirk.

“I went to pick up the registered letter and spotted
Adele Griffith at the post office. She was driving a four-by-four and I
followed her as far as Mount Auburn Road, but then I lost her.” Rhetta opened
the top middle drawer of her desk and removed the dagger-style letter opener
with the MCB logo on it. She didn’t really remember exactly when she’d gotten
it, but it always reminded her of a stiletto. She recalled that the bank had
given them out as a promotional item at one time. Why would the bank have ever
done that? She shrugged. She’d had it for several years. Back in the day,
nobody worried that it could be a lethal weapon. She took a deep breath and
slit the envelope open.

Emptying the contents on the desk, she reached first
for the letter accompanying the few sheets of enclosed papers. Scanning quickly
past the usual greeting from the records Center, her eyes locked on the second
paragraph: 
First Lieutenant Alexander Franklin Caldwell, U S Army, died
from injuries sustained in service to his country on August 6, 1973.
She
would’ve been six years old, nearly seven. Her heart thumped. Why hadn’t her
mother told her any of this?

Rhetta’s arms and shoulders erupted in goose flesh.
She stared at the enclosed Certificate of Death along with the plot number
where her father was buried in Jefferson Barracks Cemetery.

According to the proof she held in her hands, her
father had died during the Vietnam War. If that was true, then who was the
imposter who tracked her down to give her a locket that had belonged to her
mother? Something didn’t jive. She was positive the man claiming to be her
father was indeed her father. He had seemed familiar when she first saw him.
Was her memory playing tricks on her? If he was her father, then what did the records
center send her? The social security number matched the one she had found in
her mother’s things.

She returned the contents to the envelope, then slid
the envelope into her desk drawer. She would have to think about this later.
There was too much swirling around in her head to make any sense out of what
she’d just seen.

She sat back, and began massaging her temples. The
skull-crushing headache was working its way back. She had too much to think
about. From the day she and Ricky found the remains of Malcom Griffith, too
much had happened in too short a time.

Randolph made it clear that he didn’t want her
involved in any investigating, and wasn’t too thrilled about her finding Mylene
Allard. Yet, she couldn’t help herself. After all, Sheriff Unreasonable had
even hinted that she could be a suspect in Jeremy’s death. Look what happened
to Ricky. They arrested her.

A cold finger of fear inched up her spine. Could
Ricky have killed Jeremy? She admitted that they’d quarreled. No. Definitely
not. She shook her head to chase that notion away. Ricky? Never.

However, somebody killed him.

Was it Mylene? Did she kill the brother she hated?
Is that why she warned Rhetta away? Then why had she called Rhetta to meet her
at the barn? Thinking about that, Rhetta wondered if Mylene wanted to lure her
to the barn to possibly frame her for the murder she was planning. Then there
was Anjanette. Maybe she really was Jeremy’s stepmother, not his real mother,
and killed him over money? What Rhetta overheard from the closet didn’t
reassure her that Jeremy wasn’t bilking Anjanette. There was no doubt in
Rhetta’s mind that Jeremy was pond scum.

“What was the letter about? Do you owe a million
dollars in back taxes and the feds are going to come and get you?” Woody’s
question snapped Rhetta back to reality.

“No. Nothing like that. It’s about my father. I sent
for his military records. They really don’t tell me much.” She wasn’t ready to
discuss the conflicting information about Alexander Franklin Caldwell. She
didn’t really even want to think about her father. She’d harbored years of
hatred for the man, so she wasn’t going to let him intrude now.

 She had a murder or two to solve. In spite of her
husband’s warnings.